


all i want for christmas is you

by hellalujah



Category: Electronic Dance Music RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Christmas, Christmas Shopping, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Misunderstandings, Penpals to Friends to Lovers, Shopping Malls, boys being dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-17 03:30:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13068189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellalujah/pseuds/hellalujah
Summary: Working retail at Christmas is way more manageable when you work in the same mall as your best friend. Except for when you're in love with said best friend.





	all i want for christmas is you

**Author's Note:**

> merry christmas to all and to all a good night
> 
> thanks @ a for beta'ing <3

A known fact of the universe: working retail isn’t exactly the most glamorous job.

It’s something Hugo had known when he’d applied in the first place - working at a mall GameStop outlet was never going to be a glitzy gig. And he’d been fine with it. He still is, mostly.

He’d known that the Christmas season was going to be particularly bad. He just hadn’t known exactly _how_ bad.

Shrieking kids, panicked parents losing their minds over whether or not it’s morally sound to buy Call of Duty for their fourteen year old son. Mothers asking for copies of games that won’t be released until mid-next year and single dads asking their bored-looking daughters what kind of games girls are into these days.

Hugo has kind of just accepted the permanent December migraine by now.

Still, there’s something a little magical about the mall during the holiday season. Lights and garland strung up everywhere, tacky Christmas remixes blasting through the speakers overhead. The Santa the mall has hired is also a nice touch - he’s a kindly old man who seems well-meaning, even if he’s offered Hugo whiskey out of a hip flask more than once now.

Someone’s kid screams from somewhere around the Nintendo section and Hugo straightens up a bit, shaken from his thoughts.

It’s been a long day. He’s been here since seven this morning and it’s almost five now, nearly time to head out for the night. Really, he wasn’t even supposed to work Christmas Eve, but his parents had been alright with it when his manager had called him in a panic, telling him a coworker “has pneumonia, I don’t know how that’s an excuse not to come in on fucking Christmas Eve, fuck, please help me out, Hugo!”

It could be worse, really. He knows Porter’s working today too, so they’ll probably walk home together once they’re both off.

Speak of the devil.

Porter comes rushing in, red-faced and sweaty and wheezing and Hugo gives him a look.

“Did you run all the way from HMV?” The HMV Porter works at is all the way across the mall, probably close to half a mile of wet tile and haggard Christmas shoppers.

Porter sucks in a laboured breath and grins weakly. “I accidentally ran down the up escalator. A lady hit me with her shopping bags - probably on purpose?”

Hugo snorts. “I’m off in ten minutes, if you don’t mind waiting.”

“Yeah! Yeah, of course,” Porter says, nodding earnestly. “Can we go get food after? I’m starving.”

Hugo thinks distantly of his family’s traditional Christmas Eve bread-and-cheese-and-meat _thing_ that is probably already laid out on the table at home. And then he looks at Porter’s stupid puppy eyes and sighs.

“Fine, if you’re paying.”

\--

The food court is absolutely packed.

It seems like exactly no one has finished their Christmas shopping even though there’s less than four hours until the mall closes. Hugo rolls his eyes and feels vaguely superior for finishing his Christmas shopping _weeks_ ago - chocolate and gift cards for a ‘date night out’ for his parents, a vegan cookbook for his sister that he knows she’s been eyeing for months. A vintage copy of Super Mario for SNES for his brother.

And for Porter…

Hugo can’t help but smile a bit. Early in December someone had come in with a stack of Dance Dance Revolution games _and_ a pair of old step mats. They’re hard to find these days and Hugo had snatched them up - with his sizeable employee discount, of course - before they could ever make it to the floor. He knows Porter’s going to love it.

His ears go kind of warm at the thought. It’s annoying how even just thinking about Porter smiling because of something he did gives him butterflies these days.

He’s jolted out of his thoughts when Porter slaps down their tray of Taco Bell in front of him with gusto, sliding into the chair across from him and grinning rather suspiciously. Hugo goes for his crunchwrap and starts to peel off the wrapper, arching an eyebrow at Porter.

“So,” Porter starts, carefully pulling the lid off of his salad. “How’s your day been?”

Very suspicious. He clearly needs a favour.

Hugo squints at him and takes a pointed bite of his food, chews and swallows very slowly before answering.

“Much better now that I’m out of work, thanks,” he says thickly. There’s a lump of tortilla jammed in his throat and he takes an undignified swig of Dr. Pepper to wash it down. When he manages to look back up, Porter’s still watching him, stabbing at a piece of lettuce with his plastic fork.

Hugo narrows his eyes even further.

“What do you want, Porter,” he asks eventually. Porter immediately sits up a bit straighter and leans across the table.

“Listen, I need your help,” he says, voice low like it’s some government-protected secret. “I need to find a Christmas present for… for someone.”

Hugo purses his lips. “Someone?”

“Yeah! Someone…” Porter glances down at the table and his cheeks go pink. “Someone really special.”

Hugo can feel his mouth curl into a frown and his insides turn to ice.

“Oh,” he says belatedly before taking a too-big bite of his crunchwrap. It gives him the time to rearrange his expression and smile as teasingly as he’s able around his mouthful of tortilla and cheese. “I didn’t realize you had a Christmas crush!”

Porter flushes a deep, deep red that looks hilariously festive against the green of his jacket. “I, uh…”

Hugo has to take another sip of his drink to buy himself more time as Porter trails off, as Hugo realizes Porter’s… serious about whoever this person is.

He hiccoughs part way through his sip and there’s Dr. Pepper in his nose but he manages to quell any coughing pretty quickly.

“I don’t know how much help I’ll be,” he says finally. “I’m bad at shopping for… girls.”

Porter goes an even deeper shade of red and stares down at his salad. “You’re like, I don’t know, I think you have similar tastes, is all.”

Somehow that’s the worst thing Porter could have said. Hugo has to focus on pushing down the churn in his stomach and he doesn’t respond.

“Look, just…” Porter sets down his fork and sighs, shoulders dropping. “It’s for someone I _really_ like and I want to make sure it’s all, like, perfect. You know?”

Hugo chews the inside of his cheek. He feels… left out, yes. A little heartbroken, maybe.

“Please, Hugo,” Porter begs, all big brown puppy eyes and pouty lips and Hugo is so _weak._

“Fine, yes, of course,” he says eventually, looking back down at the sad remains of his crunchwrap. “What are friends for?”

He doesn’t need to look up to know how brightly Porter is smiling. It’s probably better that he doesn’t look directly at him anyway. It’s kind of like looking at the sun sometimes. Beautiful, but decidedly dangerous.

Porter is his friend. That’s all.

\--

Porter drags him to Godiva first.

Hugo’s not sure how Porter has even managed to scrape together the cash to be shelling it out at a place like Godiva - everything here seems ludicrously over-priced, but it smells amazing and the clerk is a friend of a friend, one of their classmates’ brothers or something. Some short guy with an accent who keeps giving them samples, anyway.

“Which ones do you think she’d like?” Hugo manages through a mouthful of truffle, glancing over his shoulder when Porter hesitates too long. He recovers quickly, though, making a show of swallowing and rubbing at his chin.

“What do you think?” he counters. “Which ones did you think were the best?”

Hugo eyes him for another moment before shrugging one shoulder. “I don’t know, I guess the… hazelnut ones? The truffles.”

Porter nods attentively and waves the clerk over. Hugo has a feeling if Porter had a notepad he’d be taking notes about now.

In the end Porter spends close to fifty dollars on chocolate in half a dozen varieties that he pretty much forces Hugo to pick out. There are a couple that Porter wrinkles his nose at - an ‘extra dark’ chocolate truffle that Porter says is gross and bitter but Hugo adores - but they both agree that the cappuccino truffle is revolutionary.

The sampling actually turns out to be pretty enjoyable and by the time Porter’s got his box of chocolates all wrapped in gold paper Hugo’s foul mood has mostly faded away.

He remembers on their way out that they’re shopping for Porter’s _crush,_ though, and he doesn’t think the churn in his stomach is just from the chocolate anymore.

\--

Hugo’s had a thing for Porter since they’d first met.

They’d been penpals in the fifth grade, a school project in which they were both required to write letters to each other in the other’s language. Porter’s French was… atrocious to say the least, but Hugo’s been near-fluent in English since he was a little kid.

Even after they’d moved on to sixth grade they had both kept in touch, moving from letters to emails that they both agreed to write in English.

And then his parents had abruptly informed him that they were all moving to the States for his dad’s work, which Hugo hadn’t exactly been pleased about at first. Until he’d realized the city they were moving to was the one he’d been receiving letters from for the past year.

They’d both nearly had a heart attack when they realized that not only were they living in the same city, they were living on the same block as well. And of course, they’ve been inseparable ever since.

Hugo’s still not exactly sure if he’d fallen for Porter while they were writing to each other or if it was the first time they’d met in person, or maybe he’d _been_ falling and then seeing Porter’s brown eyes and floppy hair right in front of him had solidified all that.

Either way, they’re in the twelfth grade now and none of those feelings have gone away.

\--

Their next stop is HMV, which Hugo rolls his eyes expansively about.

“You work here,” he says as patiently as he’s able, “why couldn’t you just have gotten her gifts while you were working?”

“Because I needed your _he-lp,_ ” Porter whines. He’s got it down to an art, really, separating one syllable into two for maximum patheticness.

Hugo thinks his eyeballs might fall out of his head by the end of the night with all the eye rolling he’s doing.

“Alright, alright,” he mumbles, nudging Porter with his shoulder. “Where do we start? What are we getting? Movies? Music?”

Porter tenses and ducks his head. “Um… music, probably,” he mumbles. He’s blushing again, up to his ears and along the back of his neck.

“Does she have good taste?” Hugo doesn’t try to hide the snide little edge to his voice. He and Porter are self-admitted elitist assholes about most people’s music tastes - the one thing he really allows himself to be judgmental about.

“Same as us, mainly,” Porter says mildly, leading the way to the vinyl section. “There’s uh… I don’t know which ones to get, is all.”

Hugo purses his lips and starts flipping through records at random. “Do you know if she even has a record player?”

“Yes! Absolutely.”

Hugo hums and goes quiet. He shuffles through electronic records for almost a full minute before he realizes Porter’s not looking at records, he’s looking at him.

“Are you even trying?” Hugo asks, more amused than annoyed. Porter nearly jumps out of his skin and turns toward the shelves.

“I… well-,”

The alarm at the front of the store goes off and this time they both jump. They watch idly as some girl gets a stern talking-to for walking out with a Funko figurine or something before they finally turn back to each other.

“There’s, uh,” Porter starts, then looks sort of anxiously up at the display of posters above the records. “There’s that limited edition Daft Punk collection. The one-,”

“The two-hundred dollar one?” Hugo’s voice comes out breathy and sort of disbelieving. Shock at the idea that Porter’s willing to spend over two-hundred dollars on some girl, and on the heels of that something like betrayal and disdain. He’s been lusting over that release for a month - he and Porter both have - and Porter _knows._ He _knows_ how badly Hugo wants it and…

He has to take a breath. Has to remind himself that he has exactly no claim on Porter and if Porter wants to give this girl an album that expensive and that special then he must really, really like her.

His heart does something funny in his chest, like it’s splintering, maybe.

He forces himself to tune back in, to catch Porter asking, “what do you think?”

Hugo bites his lip. Then nods slowly.

“I’m sure she’ll love it. I know I would!” He manages a cheery tone this time and Porter’s face lights up. He can’t help but feeling a little relieved at that. Happy that he was able to make Porter happy, or something.

He’s got it bad.

\--

They’re most of the way home when Porter starts to panic.

“I don’t know if it’s enough,” he says, staring doubtfully down at his shopping bags. “Should I have gotten more chocolate? Maybe, fuck, a scarf or something-,”

“Porter,” Hugo interrupts before he can get himself going. “You’ve spent like two-hundred and fifty dollars, trust me. It’s enough.”

“Yeah?” Porter looks up at him. The Christmas lights on the houses in their neighbourhood make his eyes glitter and Hugo finds himself wishing wildly that there were a bunch of mistletoe around so he would have an excuse to kiss Porter’s stupid pink lips.

He doesn’t, though. Just shoves his hands in his jacket pockets.

“Yeah,” he echoes. “I know it.”

Porter nudges him gently with his shoulder as they start walking again, crunching through the snow.

“Thanks for helping me,” he mumbles. “It meant a lot.”

Hugo shrugs but can’t bring himself to pull away. He lets himself lean against Porter’s shoulder and they fall into step so they don’t have to separate.

“That’s what friends are for,” he says quietly and Porter breathes out a laugh.

Porter invites him to come in for hot chocolate and he’s tempted - Porter’s mother makes the _best_ hot chocolate and his own mother would probably kill him for saying so - but he shakes his head and promises they’ll see each other tomorrow.

And then Porter hugs him goodbye and heads inside. Hugo watches him go, watches the door as it closes and then stares a moment longer. When he finally heads down to the block to his own house, it’s started to snow again.

It’s easy to say work was busy and that he’s too tired to socialize, and his parents and siblings don’t question it when he heads up to bed at nine o’clock.

\--

He wakes up early Christmas morning and it’s a bright, clear day outside.

He shivers when he finally clambers out of bed and his bare foot touches the floor. The hardwood might as well be made of ice and he hops across his room searching desperately for a pair of socks. The socks, however, have their own disadvantages and he nearly slips down the stairs. Somehow he manages to make it into the kitchen without dying though, phone clutched in one hand as he follows the scent of coffee and sizzling bacon.

“Merry Christmas,” says his mom as he shuffles in to hug her.

“Merry Christmas,” he mumbles back. “Coffee?”

“In the pot.”

He staggers over to the cupboard for his mug, fills it up on autopilot and the first sip is a revelation. Addicted to caffeine at the tender age of seventeen, he thinks solemnly. What a life.

His phone pings and he nearly drops it in his coffee cup before he can squint at the notification. A text from Porter, cheerfully shrieking _i’m coming over!!_

Hugo stares blearily at the text and texts back a feeble _Okay_ before he slips into his chair at the dining room table across from his dad.

“Porter’s coming by,” he informs his mother over his shoulder. She barely responds - Porter might as well be her fourth child at this point, with the amount of time he’s over at their place.

“Did you get him something nice?” she asks as she pours Hugo a glass of orange juice, pushes a platter of potatoes over to him. He spoons some onto his plate dutifully.

“Yeah, just a… a game he wanted,” he mumbles, poking at a potato with his fork. “Those dance games he likes.”

His mom smiles indulgently even though he’s pretty sure she has no idea what he’s talking about. He opens his mouth to explain - needlessly, since he’s sure it’ll go in one ear and out the other - but he’s interrupted by the doorbell ringing.

“He’s moving quickly for eight in the morning,” Hugo’s mom comments as Hugo heaves himself out of his chair. He skids on the hardwood in his slippery socks and nearly falls again but catches himself on the doorframe in the entryway and manages to stay upright, unlocks the door and yanks it open.

Porter’s standing there, laden with wrapped packages. It looks like he’s wearing pyjama pants under his winter coat, blue paisley tucked into big snow boots. His scarf is wrapped around most of his face, only his eyes peeking out between the scarf and his knit hat.

“You look cozy,” Hugo says as Porter makes an annoyed sound and pushes past Hugo into the house.

“The door was locked,” he says mournfully, muffled in his scarf. “Your door is _never_ locked.”

Hugo snickers and Porter starts struggling out of his boots without ever letting go of his stack of presents. Really, Hugo could help. This is more fun maybe.

“Do you want some coffee?” Hugo asks, picking at lint on his pyjama pants as Porter frees himself from his tangle of scarf and yanks off his hat.

“Ple- _ase,_ ” Porter groans. “Gimme.”

“There’s food too,” Hugo tells him, leading the way to the kitchen, “as usual.”

“Your mom’s cooking is the best _,"_ Porter says dreamily, then balks. “Don’t tell my mom I said that, she’ll have me deported for treason.”

Hugo snorts and he means to say something but his mother is suddenly there, kissing Porter’s cheeks and fussing over him - “you’ve gotten so _skinny!_ ” - so he busies himself pouring Porter his own mug of coffee until the storm is over.

They manage to escape after Hugo’s mom practically force feeds them both a frankly unreasonably large breakfast, scurrying off into the living room so Hugo can snatch up Porter’s presents from under the tree. Half of the gifts Porter had brought turn out to be baking from Porter’s mom for the Leclercq family, so they end up cross-legged on Hugo’s bed with two wrapped packages each.

“Okay,” Hugo says, “who’s starting this year? Or are we going at the same time?”

Porter goes very, very red and glances down at the pair of presents in his lap. “Um, you can go first this year. If that’s okay.”

Hugo cocks an eyebrow and shrugs. “Your loss!” He’s… very confident in his gifts this year, and he really doesn’t mind following up whatever gag gifts Porter’s gotten him with enough DDR to last a couple of years. Or, well, probably a month for Porter.

Anyway.

“Does it matter which one I start with?” It’s a rhetorical question because Hugo’s already picking at the wrapping on the smaller package, peeling it back and -

He pauses as he rips up Porter’s shoddy snowman-print wrap job to reveal shiny gold paper. Then carefully tears off the rest.

A very familiar box of chocolates.

“Porter,” Hugo says quietly. “What-,”

“Open the other one,” Porter says without looking up. He’s even redder now, somehow, and his voice is hoarse.

It feels a little like there’s an entire circus troupe doing tumbles in Hugo’s stomach but he reaches for the second present anyway, unwraps it with shaking hands. He knows what it is even before the _Daft Punk_ logo is revealed. Hugo stares. And then stares some more. And then looks up at Porter with wide eyes.

“You,” he says. “The. You _didn’t._ ”

Porter blinks rapidly down at his knees. “I, uh. Merry Christmas?”

“ _Porter,_ ” Hugo whispers. “This is - this was - you - what about the _girl?_ ”

Porter finally looks up and his eyes are just as wide as Hugo thinks his own are. He looks like he might be close to tears, which isn’t terribly surprising.

Then he barks out a laugh.

“You’re _so_ gullible,” Porter says hoarsely through his giggles. “There was, oh my god, there was never any girl, holy shit.”

“You - _what._ ”

Porter stops laughing very abruptly at Hugo’s tone. It’d come out a little more harsh than he’d intended and now Porter looks even closer to tears.

“You, um, if you don’t-,” Porter looks away again, red from the collar of his sweater to his hairline. “If you aren’t, into it - that - uh, _me_ -,”

“Oh my god, shut _up,_ ” Hugo interrupts, leaning across the pile of shredded paper to catch Porter around the back of his head and kiss him soundly.

Porter makes a tiny noise against Hugo’s lips. Hugo holds tighter to Porter’s hair for a second before he pulls away.

They stare at each other. Downstairs, someone’s put on a Christmas album and Mariah Carey’s voice floats up to them, crooning about how all she wants for Christmas is -

“You,” Porter says, then licks his lips. “Do you - are you really-,”

“How long, you fucking idiot,” Hugo says breathlessly. “Because - fuck - for me it’s been, I don’t know, since we met?”

Porter’s face is roughly the shade of a very ripe cherry tomato now. “Um. Yeah, the… the same.”

Hugo punches him in the shoulder because he absolutely deserves it. He considers slapping himself as well but ends up with his face buried in his hands.

“We’re the _worst,_ ” he says gleefully. “Think of all of the awful things we could have gotten up to if we weren’t both such idiots.”

Porter makes a mournful little sound and Hugo straightens up, wheezing out a laugh.

“Here, open your stupid presents, stupid,” he says, shoving his gifts toward Porter. “We have so much making out to catch up on.”

Porter hesitates a moment before he starts to smile, that annoyingly bright and endearing smile that Hugo is maybe extremely in love with.

“Cool,” Porter squeaks. “Cool, yes, fuck yeah, Merry Christmas to us.”

Hugo laughs again, the circus troupe in his stomach doing a particularly daring flip.

As much as he loves his very, very expensive Daft Punk album, Hugo thinks the best Christmas present he’s ever received came wrapped in a stupid knit scarf.

“Holy _shit,_ where did you find - oh my god _Hugo!_ ”

Hugo grins. It’s turning out to be a rather good Christmas after all.


End file.
